This completes my little trilogy of posts on my encounters with TCM and healing modalities of this sort. This is the first and second post.
Years ago at university, I studied choy lay fut (CLF) pretty intensely and my teacher chose me to help him do a demo at the University of Florida. Every year, the MA clubs would get together on a certain night and do demos of their respective styles. Lots of karate clubs were there, the aikido club, judo, taiji, etc.
For our demo, I did CLF’s dragon form and my teacher then demoed his version of CLF’s drunken fist. Then, in contrast to every other demo that night, he and I free-sparred with no gear right there in front of everyone. This was no big deal to us — my teacher actually taught me CLF through fighting. We fought almost everyday, so fighting in front of the crowd was just natural. But an un-choreographed sparring match was unusual for a demo and I’m proud to say that we brought down the house.
As we left the stage, I noticed a sensation in my right forearm, but I didn’t think much of it. I must have incorrectly blocked some strike my teacher had thrown. We then went to dinner with many of our MA friends including the taiji teacher that demoed before us. He was a friend of my CLF teacher.
To be perfectly honest, I didn’t think much of his stuff. He did the CMC 37 and some other stuff and I knew he trained hard, but I wrote him off as a “chi hugger” so I didn’t take him too seriously, even though I had known him for years.
But as we sat there and enjoyed our meal, my right forearm began to throb. It was getting more and more painful, so I mentioned it to my teacher and he asked the taiji teacher about it. The taiji teacher then asked me if I’d like him to do some “reiki”on it. Now, I’m embarrassed to admit that I almost snorted when he said that. I knew that reiki was a type of qi/energy projection thing that is used for healing, but I was a real skeptic at the time (maybe not much has changed, haha). Needless to say, I didn’t for a second believe that anything AT ALL was going to happen. In fact, I was quite sure that this teacher was going to look like a bit of a fool after he did his thing and I didn’t get any benefit from it.
So I naturally told him to proceed.
He told me to partially dangle my arm off the end of the chair arm, I did, and then he placed one hand above my right forearm and another below it. He then told me to go on talking or whatever and pay him no mind. The only stipulation was I couldn’t move my arm.
So I sat there and talked, etc. and only peeked over at him a few times to see what he was doing. He was concentrating very deeply, staring at my arm and slowly moving his hands over the spot that hurt in my forearm. Knowing me, I probably rolled my eyes or something at that point.
Thing is, about five minutes later, I felt really tired. Two minutes after that, I sort of slumped in my chair and the taiji teacher asked me what I was feeling. I said that I could still feel the pain but it’s like it was a thousand miles away. The throbbing was like hearing a drum in the distance. I also felt totally relaxed and calm, like after a total body massage.
He stopped and said that was the power of reike, and I remember feeling a bit sheepish. Not only did the treatment work to alleviate the pain, but it worked DESPITE me thinking that it wouldn’t. That really surprised me. There was no hypnotic suggestion or chalking that experience up to the power of belief, etc.
I didn’t know what to do with that experience for many years, and, to some extent, I still don’t even today. Part of the lesson I draw from it is that I probably shouldn’t be such a skeptic all the time. Sometimes you run into stuff that actually works. Thing is, though, that my skepticism is what made this experience so profound for me. Not only did I not think that his reiki would work, I was actually a little hostile to it. But it worked anyway! If I had been a “true believer” then I would have been open to the power of suggestion.
My heroes James Randi and Carl Sagan would not have been proud of me that night. Haha.
6 responses so far ↓
wujimon // September 7, 2006 at 8:28 pm |
Dude.. awesome story! I really like your “qi hugger” comments. Many of times, I’ve written folks off as being “rainbow taiji granola eating qi huggers” (even though I rather enjoy granola…
) only to be surprised at some of the skill demonstrated from these folks. While it far and few in between, it’s a skill that I’ve not really seen demonstrated in other “martial throw-down baddies”.
I once commented to a friend regarding the CMC form as appearing limp and not really full of anything but I received a reply back that looks can be deceiving. It may appear weak from the outside, but internally it’s very strong as a lot of focus is placed upon internal development (for whatever definition you want to apply to ‘internal’).
I admit that I still often make these generalities and I’m quite a skeptic, but more and more, I’m starting to have a bit of an open mind on these things. However, I still don’t buy the whole “sit down while I do qigong around your head to make you feel better” stuff unless it’s from like a taiji master or something.
chessman71 // September 8, 2006 at 7:00 am |
Wuji,
I’m still a skeptic too. I think it’s a good thing. Fact is, most people can’t do any of this stuff despite what they say. What made this guy different IMO was the fact that he trained really hard and I didn’t give him credit for that. He was also not a total New Age guy, he actually had martial competence with his taiji. He just happened to do the healing side as well as the martial side.
Some of the CMC stuff is good. It depends on the person. One of my teachers told me he thinks the CMC short form is a really high-level form. Problem is, in his opinion people needs lots of other training before they can make the CMC approach work. They simply leave too much out of the training, relying instead on just the short form and doing the taiji in too relaxed a manner.
Matt // September 9, 2006 at 4:00 pm |
Innerezdingg …. blogged it. As a recovering physicist I’ve had skepticism from an early age, but running into more of this stuff too. Hang on the phone’s ringing … I bet I know who it is ….
Clearly there’s a bunch of stuff we (let’s settle on university physics teachers, to represent the rational arm of humanity) have a physical model for, and a bunch of stuff that works, and a fractal boundary between them. Then there’s all the stuff we think should work, and doesn’t (certain theraputic drugs?) and some stuff that works for reasons unknown.
chessman71 // September 9, 2006 at 5:45 pm |
Haha! That reminds me of Donald Rumsfield’s speech about the known knowns, the known unknowns, and the unknown unknowns!
But you make a good point. I think we in the West just don’t have a model that accounts for this kind of stuff yet.
Strangely enough, the more I get into TCM the more I realize that the early TCM doctors saw what they were doing as MOVING AWAY from mysticism. Before TCM in China, disease was attributed to spirits. The Confucians, in particular, wanted nothing to do with non-rational explanations of illness. That’s why they adapted I-jing theory to medicine. But we see that as mystical now. Amazing, isn’t it? It’s mostly due to the lack of cultural understanding IMO.
Thanks for the trackback.
Matt // September 10, 2006 at 9:20 pm |
I changed my post title – hence above link broken. Try this Corrected link.
LGS // September 21, 2006 at 4:37 am |
Yah but I heard Carl Sagan’s peng quan was totally weak….